Re: dos2unix treatment of formfeeds

[Erwin Waterlander]

Ben Pfaff schreef, Op 20-11-2010 5:34:
> Hi.  Harry Thijssen, a user of GNU PSPP (software that I
> maintain), wrote to me that dos2unix reported that some of the
> text files included with PSPP are binary instead of text.  I took
> a look at the problem and discovered that dos2unix treats the
> ASCII FF (formfeed) character as an indication that a file is
> binary.  Formfeeds are fairly common in GNU software because of
> the following paragraph in the GNU coding standards:
>
>         Please use formfeed characters (control-L) to divide the
>      program into pages at logical places (but not within a
>      function).  It does not matter just how long the pages are,
>      since they do not have to fit on a printed page.  The
>      formfeeds should appear alone on lines by themselves.
>
> I'm appending a patch that changes dos2unix to consider formfeeds
> a valid character in text files.  I hope that you will consider
> applying it or an equivalent in an upcoming dos2unix release.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben.

Hi Ben,

I have seen this too a few times, but I didn't know that form feeds are 
part of GNU coding standards. I assumed that use of form feed control 
characters is not common, so I took no risk and didn't make an exception 
for form feeds. There is always the option -f to force conversion.

I include your patch in the next dos2unix version. I don't think there 
is a big risk that a binary file is accidentally seen as text file with 
this extra exception. Is it OK to mention your name and/or email address 
in the ChangeLog? Thanks for the patch.

best regards,

--
Erwin Waterlander
http://www.xs4all.nl/~waterlan/